Banksy Hits NYC Part 31

Well today is the final day of Banksy’s month long street art show taking place in New York and with it the final piece of Better Out Than In popped up in Queens. The balloon lettered throw up appeared around 6:30 a.m. and of course is already drawing massive crowds. The famed Bristol artist also gifted a design that’s intended to be printed on a shirt to commemorate the show, as is always the case with the provided graphic it’s free and up to you to do the printing. Funnily enough it resembles my own graphic I threw up for an earlier story on the exhibition.

For my money I’ve most certainly enjoyed the circus, some of the pieces are up there with the artists best works to date, rumor has it the LA is is up next for the month of December but only time will tell for sure.

Banksy had this to say about his experience of the thirty plus days spent in the Big Apple…

"Well, this is the last day of the show, and I'd like to say we're going out on a high note. And, I guess in a way, we are. [Cue "New York, New York"] This is a sideways take on the ubiquitous spray-painted bubble lettering that actually floats. It's an homage of sorts to the most prevalent form of graffiti in the city that invented it for the modern era. Or, it's another Banksy piece that's full of hot air.

So, what does the artist hope to have achieved with this so-called residency? "If just one child has been inspired to pick up a can of paint and make some art--well that would be statistically disappointing considering how much work I put in."

Banksy asserts that outside is where art should live, amongst us. And rather than street art being a "fad," maybe it's the last thousand years of art history that are the blip. When art came inside in service of the church and institutions. But art's rightful place is on the cave walls of our communities. Where it can act as a public service, provoke debate, voice concerns, forge identities.

The world we live in today is run, visually at least, by traffic signs, billboards, and planning committees. Is that it? Don't we want to live in a world made of art, not just decorated by it?

Thanks for coming.

[Fireworks]"